The Second Seal

by Dennis Wheatley

  While Dimitriyevitch had been speaking two others, whom he felt certain were Tankosić and Ciganović, had moved up with a mask, white hooded cloak, black kid gloves and dagger. With these they now ritually equipped the Duke as an accepted member of their order.

  He was much relieved to think that this unpleasant business was over. The mumbo-jumbo of it had struck him as extremely schoolboyish and had entirely failed to impress him, except with a slight nausea. But he could imagine it having a profound effect upon the undeveloped mind of the average Serbian officer, who was only one generation removed from superstitious peasant stock. In particular, he considered that the final warning, that suicide would be the inevitable sequel to treachery, was a very clever piece of psychology. The suggestion of it was well calculated to beget the desired result among such semi-primitive men, and much more likely to deter them from betraying the society than any straightforward threat to seek out and kill them.

  These thoughts had hardly passed through his mind before Militchevitch appeared at his side again and indicated that he should leave the room. As he had expected to be offered a seat at the long table and allowed to take part in the further business of the gathering, he was most disagreeably surprised. He could only hope that his withdrawal was required merely temporarily, while the meeting discussed some question connected with himself. But, when he reached the hall, to his intense annoyance, Militchevitch began to relieve him of his cloak and other regalia.

  Hiding his disappointment as well as he could, he asked: “Are these things common property, or are they marked in some way so that I can identify them when I need them for the next meeting?”

  The tall, sloe-eyed young man smiled his sad smile, and replied: “You have been using one of the spare sets kept for such purposes, Excellency; and it is unlikely that you will need the loan of a set again. There are many hundreds of members of our brotherhood, but once they have been initiated very few of them are ever called upon to make a second appearance before the Grand Council. Excuse me, please, for a few moments now, as I must put these things away and I wish to go to the toilet before we start back.”

  The second Militchevitch disappeared, de Richleau tip-toed over to the door of the big room. He dared not stoop down and put his ear to the key-hole in case he was caught in that position, so he leant his back against the door-jamb and stood with a nonchalant air, his hands in his pockets, staring at the ceiling as though deep in thought; but actually he was straining his ears to catch every sound that came through the crack of the door.

  He could hear the voices inside quite plainly but, unfortunately for him, they were talking in Serbian and, although he was making rapid strides in mastering that language, they were speaking too fast for him to catch much of what they said. But, in the three or four minutes which elapsed while Militchevitch was absent, he did get one thing. Sunday and the date of the 28th were mentioned several times, and it was clear that they were discussing some definite action that was to take place on that day.

  The sound of footsteps gave him sufficient time to step away from the door before Militchevitch reappeared, and two minutes later they were in the car on their way back to Belgrade. On the way he learnt only one thing of minor interest. Militchevitch had not been selected to act as cicerone to him on this occasion because he was his A.D.C. The young man carried out the same duties for each neophyte who was initiated, and kept the register of the Brotherhood.

  As de Richleau undressed that night he felt deep concern about the time he had already lost without making any appreciable advance towards the object of his mission. He had exercised considerable restraint while waiting to be initiated, counting it as certain that once he had taken the oath to the Black Hand the secret intentions of the brotherhood would be disclosed to him at once. But as things were he had not even had a chance to find out the names of the men who made up the Grand Council, much less learn their plans while they sat in session. He could only trust that now he was an initiate, Dimitriyevitch would take an early opportunity to reveal their intentions to him.

  Ten hours later, outside the cathedral in Belgrade after a Sunday Church Parade, de Richleau was presented by Dimitriyevitch to King Peter. Every schoolboy in the world who collected stamps at that time was familiar with the physiognomy of the Serbian monarch. His portrait, even more than that of his royal Montenegrin neighbour and ally, typified the idea of a Ruritanian Prince. On seeing him the Duke had to repress a smile, as the King was so exactly like the decorative image that made the stamps of his country so much more intriguing than those of most other nations. Crowning the lined face, with its cavalry moustache and small tuft of beard on the chin, reposed the flat-topped white fur papenka and erect aigrette. He wore a brilliant uniform with a half-cloak, modelled on the Austrian pattern, gold striped breeches and tasselled Hessian boots.

  The Duke knew that under these theatrical trappings the King possessed a liberal and cultured mind; but on this occasion he gave no evidence of it. On the contrary, he remarked on how much he owed to Dimitriyevitch’s good advice, adding courteously that he was now further indebted to the Colonel for having secured a soldier of de Richleau’s abilities for the Serbian army.

  King Peter was known to be a sick man, and there was a rumour that he shortly intended to appoint his son, Prince Alexander, as Regent. Moreover, as the King had protected his predecessor’s murderers, there seemed good reason to suppose that he was too deeply in the toils of the Black Hand for any outside influence to succeed in a last-moment attempt to persuade him to gamble his life in a coup to suppress it. So when he praised its Chief, de Richleau tactfully followed suit by saying that never, in his experience, had he met with such an efficient Intelligence Service as that run by the Colonel.

  The elderly monarch then got into his carriage, the troops presented arms, the band played, and he was driven back to the Palace. De Richleau watched him go with a cynical little smile, for the time and place chosen by Dimitriyevitch for this informal presentation had not been lost upon him. Evidently the Colonel did not wish him to have a prolonged conversation with the King; and, since his appointment as a Lieutenant-General made his presentation essential, had selected the parade as an opportunity which from its nature would curtail the meeting.

  In an unusually good humour at the compliments just paid him, Dimitriyevitch invited the Duke to lunch at the Senior Officers’ Club. He accepted with alacrity, hoping at last to be told something of the Colonel’s secret schemes. But in this he was disappointed. Three times during the meal he led the conversation with considerable skill round to the previous night’s meeting, expressing the hope that it had gone satisfactorily; but each time his host evaded the issue, and at length remarked a trifle sharply:

  “For the moment I think it would be best if you concerned yourself solely with our military preparations. Later, of course, I shall value your views on diplomatic issues, but until the curtain goes up I need no assistance in setting the stage.”

  De Richleau was perturbed at coming up against this unexpected brick wall. He had, perhaps too optimistically, counted on receiving Dimitriyevitch’s full confidence after his initiation into the Black Hand, and time was growing short. As its Chief had no intention of telling him anything, his only hope of succeeding in his mission lay in getting the information he needed so urgently out of one of the other members of the Grand Council. Tankosić, Ciganović and Militchevitch were the only three he had been able to identify at the previous night’s meeting, and he temporarily ruled out the last as the young A.D.C. apparently held only the position of a trusted henchman so was probably not fully in the secrets of the Council.

  On Monday evening he took Tankosić out to dinner and on to Le Can-Can, the dance haunt that they had visited together the night of his first arrival in Belgrade. Both of them got very drunk, although de Richleau was not quite so far gone as he appeared, but he got very little for his pains. The only remark that the bull-shouldered thug made which might have had reference to the pl
ot was shortly before they staggered arm in arm out into the street. They had been talking of their shooting match in the back yard of the châlet and with a drunken leer, he said:

  “Wish to God those crazy boys could shoot as well as I do. Anyhow their weapons are all right—saw to them myself.”

  As, at that moment, a scantily clad cabaret girl came up and perched herself on his lap, the Duke had no chance to follow up this cryptic utterance and discover to what boys he was alluding. And, soon afterwards, Tankosić became too drunk to talk with any sense at all. Half an hour later, anxious and frustrated, de Richleau tumbled into bed.

  On Tuesday he followed the same procedure with Ciganović. But the tall, chinless albino held his liquor better, and had evidently been warned not to talk. He abruptly cut short all attempts to make him do so, and, seeing that he was on his guard, de Richleau dared not show more than a natural curiosity, from fear of arousing his suspicions. Again he went to bed far from sober, and more worried than ever by his ill-success.

  In desperation, on Wednesday, he asked Basil Militchevitch to dine with him. The young man was obviously flattered and much upset at having to refuse, but he said that it was his mother’s name day and he could not possibly absent himself from her party. Secretly cursing the waste of a whole twenty-four hours, the Duke suggested Thursday night instead; to which Militchevitch replied that he would be greatly honoured.

  Nevertheless, de Richleau was not the man to let Wednesday go by without attempting something; so he arranged a party for that evening of officers whom he suspected might be members of the Grand Council, and entertained them all to dinner in a private room at his hotel. They were a hard-drinking lot, and after the meal most of them gathered round a piano to bellow rousing choruses while they drank. As their host did not know any of their Serbian drinking songs he had a good excuse for not joining in, and was able to join the older men who were not so boisterously inclined. Yet his luck seemed completely out. They were all actively engaged in secret preparations for war but either they did not know, or would not talk about, how it was to be started. The only thing he picked up which might have been a remote clue was a scrap of conversation between two of them, to the effect that ‘It was a pity that it could not be the old man instead, as that would have made even more certain of getting the desired result.’

  By Thursday morning all he had to go on was this reference to ‘the old man’, Tankosić’s to ‘crazy boys who were poor shots’, and the date Sunday the 28th. Puzzle his wits as he would he could make nothing of these scraps, except a possibility that someone was to be shot. But if that were so, why get children to do it? Who and where remained a mystery: moreover, he did not see how shooting any individual was likely to provoke a war. And time was now getting desperately short to take counter-measures, even if he could find out enough to suggest any.

  That night Militchevitch came to dinner. During the meal it emerged that the sloe-eyed, sad-faced youth was Dimitriyevitch’s nephew, and that he owed his position as keeper of the Black Hand membership roll and general factotum to the Grand Council to that relationship. He both feared and admired his uncle and, like him, was fervidly patriotic. After a while he confessed rather shyly that he spent his leisure transcribing ancient heroic Serbian legends into modern verse. When the Duke asked him if he would like to go on to the cabaret show, he replied:

  “I hope you will not think me unmanly, but I don’t really enjoy the company of cabaret sort of girls. And it is such a pleasure to talk to anyone like your Excellency, that I would much prefer to stay here for a while if I may.”

  The Duke at once agreed, although with secret reluctance, as ‘wine, women and song’ form a natural trinity, and he felt that his prospects of loosening his guest’s tongue by frequent application of strong liquor would be very much reduced if they remained where they were. However, he poured the young man a handsome ration of cognac and, as the small dining-room was now almost deserted, told the waiter that they intended to sit on at the table instead of moving out to one in the draughty lounge.

  Actually, he did not think it likely that Militchevitch knew anything worth knowing but, all the same, he set to work to lull him into that sense of ease and well-being in which confidences are made. During the next hour he learned quite a lot about his A.D.C.’s private life and ambitions. Then he gradually brought the conversation round to the future of Serbia and, having done so, proceeded to adopt a completely different technique from that which he had employed with Tankosić and Ciganović. He spoke of the coming coup as though he knew all about it, and took it for granted that his guest did too.

  The result was electrifying. Militchevitch did know the whole plot, and evidently nobody had thought to tell him that de Richleau was to be kept in the dark until the mine was sprung. In a moment the cat was out of the bag. Heaving a deep sigh, he said:

  “It saddens me greatly to think that it should have been decided to do the thing in this way. The whole idea of playing on the patriotism of those students—drugging them and hypnotizing them, and all the rest of it—to make them murder the Archduke is revolting. Of course, it’s clever in a way, as the Austrians are certain to put it down to the Bosnian Serbs and take reprisals on them, which will give us just the excuse we need to champion them by force of arms. Still, although I dare not say so to my uncle, I consider that to open our campaign with an assassination is to rob it at the outset of much of the glory we hope to gain. When the facts leak out, as they are bound to do sooner or later, I fear that the events of Sunday the 28th of June in Sarajevo are going to bring dishonour on Serbia in the eyes of the whole world.”

  So there it was! The ‘boys’ were fanatical students to whom Tankosić had supplied arms. The ‘old man’ was the Emperor and, in view of Franz Ferdinand’s unpopularity in Vienna, Austrian reactions would have been much more spontaneous and furious if their time-honoured sovereign had been murdered instead. But the assassination of the Heir Apparent would be quite enough. On principle, Austria could not ignore it; so thousands of Bosnian political suspects would be thrown into gaol and all sorts of new reprisive measures against the Bosnian Serbs would be initiated. As long as Dimitriyevitch could keep the fact concealed that Serbia had instigated the murder, Russia and the democracies would support Serbian demands that Austria should cease her persecution of the innocent Bosnian masses; and he obviously counted on being able to do that long enough for his purpose.

  Once war had started, if the truth then became known it could make no difference. When the great powers had got to death-grips the rights and wrongs of the initial quarrel would be smothered in the smoke of a hundred thousand cannons, and the flash of fifteen million rifles. To emerge victorious would be the only thing that counted. It had been publicly announced that at the conclusion of the Austrian manœuvres Franz Ferdinand would pay a state visit to the provincial capital of Bosnia and, despite Militchevitch’s repugnance to the plot, de Richleau saw in a flash that no more perfect opportunity could have been offered to Dimitriyevitch for the initiation of his terrible design.

  The Duke was now more than anxious to get rid of his young guest; but, having fully agreed with what Militchevitch had said, he forced himself to continue talking normally and pleasantly for another quarter of an hour, before indicating by a smothered yawn that he would be glad to get to bed. His A.D.C. promptly took the hint and, having thanked him effusively for a most pleasant evening, set off on his way home.

  Immediately he had gone, de Richleau borrowed a railway time-table from the office, took it upstairs, got out a map, and, his brain working at a furious speed, began to plan.

  He could not do anything by telephone as, at that date, the only telephones in Belgrade were in Government offices and the palace, connecting them on a slender network with the military headquarters in the various provinces and the outside world. He would have given ten years of his life to be able to walk round to the British Legation and see the Minister, Mr. Charles Des Graz, but he knew him to be on
leave, and greatly doubted if his subordinates would have sufficient authority to take any drastic action in his absence. Moreover, Dimitriyevitch had informed him quite casually only a few days before that all the Serbian servants in the foreign Legations were in his employ. A midnight visit would be certain to be reported, and might arouse such acute suspicion as to lead to arrest in the morning. And, as the only unauthorised possessor of this terrible secret, de Richleau felt that he must on no account risk his freedom.

  But he could write to the Chargé d’affaires, and this he did, giving full particulars of the plot, with the request that they should be sent to London by most secret cypher on the highest priority. Next, he wrote a similar letter to Sir Maurice de Bunsen in Vienna, adding the almost superfluous line that the Austrian Government should be warned without a moment’s delay. Then he set about drafting a telegram for Sir Pellinore, which would give him the gist of the matter without conveying anything to the Serbian telegraphists when they came to transmit it.

  This was no easy matter, but after considerable thought he composed the following:

  Wightfoot’s company arriving in Sarajevo on Sunday 28th stop He will open season by putting on own play quote the Ides of March unquote with François Aragon in leading role.

  As an English name, Wightfoot sounded quite plausible, yet Sir Pellinore could hardly fail to interpret it as Black Hand. The Ides of March could be connected only with the assassination of Julius Caesar, and Franz Ferdinand was virtually one of the two Caesars of Austria. Finally the name François Aragon definitely identified the victim. François was simply French for Franz, and no educated man could think of Aragon without Castille and the uniting of these two great Spanish kingdoms by the marriage of Isabella of Castille with Ferdinand of Aragon.

  The Duke’s only qualm about it was that it might be too clear, and that somebody in the Belgrade post office, who knew what was planned to take place on Sunday the 28th in Sarajevo, might spot its meaning and suppress it. But the text had all the appearance of a straightforward business wire from a theatrical producer to his associates in London, and it seemed unlikely that any telegraph clerk would be in Dimitriyevitch’s confidence. Anyhow, the date and place could not possibly be left out and any attempt to disguise them might lead to a fatal misunderstanding, so he decided that he must send it as it stood.